A Tale of A Tub

The meaning of transparency is, on its face, clear—it is, after all, a synonym for clarity. And yet, the term has been associated with a wealth of different concepts: The call for transparency in governance is presumed to empower those that are governed. But transparency turns adversarial when the state begins surveilling its citizens. Transparency can function as an element of modernist architecture, for example, when a glass facade enables light to travel fluidly between inside and outside. Or it operates as a trope of modernity itself, symbolising the ideals of openness and visibility, equality and freedom.